Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution - Corruption

AUSCHWITZ: THE CORRUPTION - DOCUMENTARY

At the Auschwitz camp, a large amount of wealth was stolen from the Jews. The Goldjuden or Jews of gold were in charge of handling the money, gold, stocks, and jewelry. They subjected the prisoners to an intimate search just before the gas chambers. Jewish women had relationships with SS guards to save their life.So called camp doctors, especially the notorious Josef Mengele, would torture and inflict incredible suffering on Jewish children, Gypsy children and many others. Patients were put into pressure chambers, tested with drugs, castrated, frozen to death and exposed to various other traumas.Josef Mengele, did a number of twin studies, and these twins were usually murdered after the experiment was over and their bodies dissected. In the case of the twins, he drew sketches of each twin, for comparison. Mengele was almost fanatical about drawing blood from twins, mostly identical twins. Only a few survived....

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Secrets of the CIA Documentary

CIA Agents Reveal CIA Secrets in Free Documentary

"The CIA is a state-sponsored terrorists association. You don't look at people as human beings. They are nothing but pieces on the chessboard."
-- Verne Lyon, former CIA agent in revealing documentary Secrets of the CIA


Secrets of the CIA is a fascinating 45-minute Turner Home Entertainment documentary made available for free viewing by Google at the link below. Five former CIA agents describe how their initial pride and enthusiasm at serving their nation turned to anguish and remorse, as they realized that they were actually subverting democracy and killing innocent civilians all in the name "national security" and promoting foreign policy agendas.

A Notre Dame football star, an aerospace engineering senior at Iowa State, an attractive high school graduate, an Olympic shooting champion, and a young patriot all were recruited by the CIA at a young age. These five brave individuals risk retaliation in revealing the story of their gradual disillusionment and finally defection from the CIA, as they eventually became convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were serving neither democracy, nor the people of their country.

The shooting champion describes being put in charge of overthrowing the democratically elected government of Guatemala. The patriot relates his deep remorse for his direct responsibility in the deaths of numerous innocent people for which he can never make amends. The pretty high school graduate describes how her initial addiction to power and intrigue turned to disgust and horror. This powerful documentary is a rare and remarkable look at the results of unbridled secrecy and the lengths to which government will go to achieve questionable foreign policy goals.


Secrets of the CIA is available for free viewing: CLICK HERE

How I became a Muslim extremist - Documentary

What is it like to actually be an extremist and serve the political goals of radical Islam?

What is it like to think like an extremist and adopt an ideology that demands you abandon all aspects of your former life - including your friends and family?

Shiraz Maher told his story on Monday's Panorama.

He is a former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), a radical organisation campaigning for the creation of caliphate - an Islamic state. It operates in many countries.


Shiraz made the case for a re-think of how the government should de-radicalise people like himself.

He told how after 9/11, he had a chance conversation with a HT member at a mosque and within weeks became a member of the cell.

PANORAMA: How I became a Muslim extremist WATCH NOW

Unreported World: Egypt's Rubbish People - Documentary

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Unreported World exposes a dark side to Egypt that the authorities don't want foreigners to see: a secretive society of around 40,000 people literally living in rubbish in a Cairo ghetto overrun by rats and disease.

Reporter Evan Williams and producer James Brabazon are some of the first journalists to film inside the ghetto where tens of thousands live with garbage stacked to the roofs of their multi-storey homes - eking out a living recycling the rubbish by hand. It's a sight rarely seen by outsiders, and almost definitely not by the million British Tourists who visit Egypt every year.

This group is unique for another reason. They're part of Muslim Egypt's Christian minority; a community claiming to be besieged by persecution, extremism and a creeping Islamisation in Egypt's security services.

The team highlights one the most sensitive issues faced by some of those in Egypt - their decision to convert to Christianity - a decision that some Muslims believe should be punishable by death under a strict interpretation of sharia religious law.

One convert, "Christine", tearfully claims that officers from the government's State Security Intelligence have threatened to torture those trying to convert, rape their daughters in front of them and jail them on false charges of prostitution.

"We are abused in the street, spat at, cigarettes are thrown at us, my young daughter who is eleven is hit by the teacher and told to wear the veil and taken to the Mosque to pray even though she doesn't know anything about the Islamic faith," she tells Williams.

Another Christian family tells the team that their 17-year-old daughter has been missing for five months. They believe she has been kidnapped and forced to marry a Muslim, yet claim that the police refuse to search for her because she is a Christian. The girl's father, Atef, claims that the police arrested him for two days and held him on a roof for six hours, handcuffed, in an effort to get him to stop looking for his daughter.

The team arranges a meeting with Gasser Abdul-Razak, of the Human Rights Watch group. He claims that for the last three or four years government officials have been illegally refusing to allow thousands of converts to register their new religion on their ID cards, a document vital for everyday life in Egypt.

Back at the Christian garbage collector's ghetto, Father Samaan, the chief Christian priest, tells Unreported World that Egyptian laws make it difficult to build new churches. Instead he had to excavate his church from the sheer rock of a mountain.

"If you can build a Mosque - which you can in Egypt - you should be able to build a church and you can't get that permission," he says. "That's not right. You should not be treated as Muslims Christians you should just be treated as citizens of Egypt."

Why Democracy? - Bloody Cartoons - Documentary

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It's a great idea to have TV networks from around the world screening a series of documentaries about democracy. The blurb accompanying Bloody Cartoons says the series does not offer a solely Western perspective, which is encouraging. Yet this film, about cartoons printed in a Danish newspaper depicting Mohammed - and the uproar they caused - is clearly presenting events from the point of view of Danish filmmaker Karsten Kjaer. Yes, he interviews a number of muftis and other Muslim leaders but we're left in no doubt what he thinks.

There also isn't a tremendous amount of new information. We know Muslim leaders were offended by the cartoons, so to see them condemning their content is hardly surprising. What is interesting is following Kjaer into Iran, where he sidesteps attempts to keep him in the capital and goes in search of an activist present at the messy Danish Embassy protests in Tehran. Had this man seen the cartoons before the protest? Of course not. The uncomplicated, refreshing response Kjaer captures here is the most effective part of the film.

There are also a few pointed moments in which it's clear that freedom of speech, as presented by the West, isn't all it's cracked up to be. A pity we couldn't have made more of this element of the debate.

The Lost Book of Nostradamus (History Channel) (2007) - Documentary

Nostradamus history's greatest prophet is credited with predicting some of the world s most shocking events hundreds of years before they ever took place. Now THE HISTORY CHANNEL reveals a recently unearthed manuscript containing cryptic predictions that may have been written and illustrated by the famed prophet.The book Prophecy of the Roman Popes lay hidden for over 400 years until its recent discovery and may contain new predictions (including the crisis in the middle east and the apocalypse). This feature-length documentary examines the book to shed new light on Nostradamus most famed prophesies and uses forensic analysis to determine its authenticity.Nostradamus words and illustrations are brought to life through state-of-the-art CGI animation and dramatic reenactments. As we examine both the man and his myth the LOST BOOK OF NOSTRADAMUS reveals the truth about history s most infamous prophet and the significance of his final words.

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The First World War - Jihad - Documentary

Faced with a war on two fronts, Germany sought out allies to stretch her enemies and reduce the pressure on her. At that time, the nominaly neutral Ottoman Empire leaned towards Germany; the Allies would tip the Ottoman Empire into the German camp. The Allies thought that Turkey, the "sick man of Europe", would be an easy pushover. They soon discovered this would not be the case.

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What We Still Don't Know - Documentary

What we still don’t know” is a documentary that details how cosmologists investigate the delicate mathematical balance of the universe and its strange accuracy. It explores modern and old ideas, trying to give sense to our existance through a scientific explaination. It is a very interesting documentary that I am sure is going to make you think for some time. I just hope it does not make you depressed of your existance.

Are we real? Is our existence the result of an accident, or was it planned by a higher conscience? Here’s a very interesting documentary taking a look at many questions human beings have asked themselves since time immemorial. Enjoy the show.

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Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion

Ten years in the making, this feature-length documentary was filmed during a remarkable nine journeys throughout Tibet, India and Nepal. CRY OF THE SNOW LION brings audiences to the long-forbidden "rooftop of the world" with an unprecedented richness of imagery... from rarely-seen rituals in remote monasteries, to horse races with Khamba warriors; from brothels and slums in the holy city of Lhasa, to magnificent Himalayan peaks still traveled by nomadic yak caravans. The dark secrets of Tibet's recent past are powerfully chronicled through riveting personal stories and interviews, and a collection of undercover and archival images never before assembled in one documentary. A definitive exploration of a legendary subject, TIBET: CRY OF THE SNOW LION is an epic story of courage and compassion.

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9/11 - Documentary

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On September 11, 2001, filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet were filming a documentary on a rookie New York City firefighter when they noticed a plane overhead. That plane would hit the World Trade Center. The firefighter and the Naudets rushed immediately to the scene. The Naudets filmed throughout Sept. 11 and the days afterward from the firemen's perspective, as it became clear to them that this was the only known footage from inside the Twin Towers that day.

This film was directed by Jules and Gedeon Naudet, and NY firefighter James Hanlon. The Naudet brothers intended to film a documentary on "probie" firefighter Tony Benetatos. The firehouse Benetatos was assigned to was just blocks from the World Trade Center.

On the day of the attacks, the Naudets turned their cameras to the horror unfolding around them. Only they were able to film from within the Trade Center as the second tower was hit, and as it collapsed.

Alexander the Great (BBC Documentary) - Greek Macedonians

Alexander the Great, the proud Greek Macedonian that spread the ancient Greek civilization, culture and language in entire the known ancient world

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BBC Documentary, Michael Wood in the footsteps of Alexander the Great

Genghis Khan [BBC Documentary]

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Brutal tyrant or man of vision?
Always strike first and always take revenge. Genghis Khan learnt these lessons the hard way during a violent childhood. Son of a murdered father, Genghis grew up in the unforgiving environment of the Mongolian Steppe. But how did an outcast, raised in poverty, come to be the great Khan?

Combining live-action footage shot in Mongolia with CGI software used in Lord of the Rings, the recreation of battle scenes is taken to a new level in presenting the story of how Genghis conquered an empire greater than the Roman Empire at its peak.

The Corporation - Documentary

http://documentary.thevidblog.com/index.php?id=622

Among the 40 interview subjects are CEOs and top-level executives from a range of industries: oil, pharmaceutical, computer, tire, manufacturing, public relations, branding, advertising and undercover marketing; in addition, a Nobel-prize winning economist, the first management guru, a corporate spy, and a range of academics, critics, historians and thinkers are also interviewed.

A LEGAL "PERSON"
In the mid-1800s the corporation emerged as a legal "person." Imbued with a "personality" of pure self-interest, the next 100 years saw the corporation's rise to dominance. The corporation created unprecedented wealth but at what cost? The remorseless rationale of "externalities" (as Milton Friedman explains, the unintended consequences of a transaction between two parties on a third) is responsible for countless cases of illness, death, poverty, pollution, exploitation and lies.

THE PATHOLOGY OF COMMERCE: CASE HISTORIES
To assess the "personality" of the corporate "person," a checklist is employed, using diagnostic criteria of the World Health Organization and the standard diagnostic tool of psychiatrists and psychologists. The operational principles of the corporation give it a highly anti-social "personality": it is self-interested, inherently amoral, callous and deceitful; it breaches social and legal standards to get its way; it does not suffer from guilt, yet it can mimic the human qualities of empathy, caring and altruism. Four case studies, drawn from a universe of corporate activity, clearly demonstrate harm to workers, human health, animals and the biosphere. Concluding this point-by-point analysis, a disturbing diagnosis is delivered: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a "psychopath."

MINDSET
But what is the ethical mindset of corporate players? Should the institution or the individuals within it be held responsible? The people who work for corporations may be good people, upstanding citizens in their communities, but none of that matters when they enter the corporation's world. As Sam Gibara, Former CEO and Chairman of Goodyear Tire, explains, "If you really had a free hand, if you really did what you wanted to do that suited your personal thoughts and your personal priorities, you'd act differently."

Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, the world's largest commercial carpet manufacturer, had an environmental epiphany and re-organized his $1.4 billion company on sustainable principles. His company may be a beacon of corporate hope, but is it an exception to the rule?

MONSTROUS OBLIGATIONS
A case in point: Sir Mark Moody-Stuart recounts an exchange between himself (at the time Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell), his wife, and a motley crew of Earth First activists who arrived on the doorstep of their country home. The protesters chanted and stretched a banner over their roof that read, "MURDERERS." The response of the surprised couple was not to call the police, but to engage their uninvited guests in a civil dialogue, share concerns about human rights and the environment and eventually serve them tea on their front lawn. Yet, as the Moody-Stuarts apologize for not being able to provide soy milk for their vegan critics' tea, Shell Nigeria is flaring unrivaled amounts of gas, making it one of the world's single worst sources of pollution. And all the professed concerns about the environment do not spare Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other activists from being hanged for opposing Shell's environmental practices in the Niger Delta.

The Corporation exists to create wealth, and even world disasters can be profit centers. Carlton Brown, a commodities trader, recounts with unabashed honesty the mindset of gold traders while the twin towers crushed their occupants. The first thing that came to their minds, he tells us, was: "How much is gold up?"

PLANET INC.
You'd think that things like disasters, or the purity of childhood, or even milk, let alone water or air, would be sacred. But no. Corporations have no built-in limits on what, who, or how much they can exploit for profit. In the fifteenth century, the enclosure movement began to put fences around public grazing lands so that they might be privately owned and exploited. Today, every molecule on the planet is up for grabs. In a bid to own it all, corporations are patenting animals, plants, even your DNA.

Around things too precious, vulnerable, sacred or important to the public interest, governments have, in the past, drawn protective boundaries against corporate exploitation. Today, governments are inviting corporations into domains from which they were previously barred.

PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT
The Initiative Corporation spends $22 billion worldwide placing its clients' advertising in every imaginable - and some unimaginable - media. One new medium: very young children. Their "Nag Factor" study dropped jaws in the world of child psychiatry. It was designed not to help parents cope with their children's nagging, but to help corporations formulate their ads and promotions so that children would nag for their products more effectively. Initiative Vice President Lucy Hughes elaborates: "You can manipulate consumers into wanting, and therefore buying your products. It's a game."

Today people can become brands (Martha Stewart). And brands can build cities (Celebration, Florida). And university students can pay for their educations by shilling on national television for a credit card company (Chris and Luke). And a corporation even owns the rights to the popular song "Happy Birthday" (a division of AOL-Time-Warner). Do you ever get the feeling it's all a bit much?

Corporations have invested billions to shape public and political opinion. When they own everything, who will stand for the public good?

THE PRICE OF WHISTLEBLOWING
It turns out that standing for the public good is an expensive proposition. Ask Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, two investigative reporters fired by Fox News after they refused to water down a story on rBGH, a controversial synthetic hormone widely used in the United States (but banned in Europe and Canada) to rev up cows' metabolism and boost their milk production. Because of the increased production, the cows suffer from mastitis, a painful infection of the udders. Antibiotics must then be injected, which find their way into the milk, and ultimately reduce people's resistance to disease.

Fox demanded that they rewrite the story, and ultimately fired Akre and Wilson. Akre and Wilson subsequently sued Fox under Florida's whistle-blower statute. They proved to a jury that the version of the story Fox would have had them put on the air was false, distorted or slanted. Akre was awarded $425,000. Then Fox appealed, the verdict was overturned on a technicality, and Akre lost her award. [For an update on the case see Disc 2 where we learn that at one point, Jane and Steve became liable for Fox's $1.8 million court costs, later to be reduced to $200,000.]

DEMOCRACY LTD.
Democracy is a value that the corporation just doesn't understand. In fact, corporations have often tried to undo democracy if it is an obstacle to their single-minded drive for profit. From a 1934 business-backed plot to install a military dictator in the White House (undone by the integrity of one U.S. Marine Corps General, Smedley Darlington Butler) to present-day law-drafting, corporations have bought military might, political muscle and public opinion.

And corporations do not hesitate to take advantage of democracy's absence either. One of the most shocking stories of the twentieth century is Edwin Black's recounting IBM's strategic alliance with Nazi Germany-one that began in 1933 in the first weeks that Hitler came to power and continued well into World War II.

FISSURES
The corporation may be trying to render governments impotent, but since the landmark WTO protest in Seattle, a rising wave of networked individuals and groups have decided to make their voices heard. Movements to challenge the very foundations of the corporation are afoot: The corporate charter revocation movement tried to bring down oil giant Unocal; a groundbreaking ballot initiative in Arcata, California, put the corporate agenda in the public spotlight in a series of town hall meetings; in Bolivia, the population fought and won a battle against a huge transnational corporation brought in by their government to privatize the water system; in India nearly 99% of the basmati patent of RiceTek was overturned; and W. R. Grace and the U.S. government's patent on Neem was revoked.

As global individuals take back local power, a growing re-invigoration of the concept of citizenship is taking root. It has the power to not only strip the corporation of its seeming omnipotence, but to create a feeling and an ideology of democracy that is much more than its mere institutional version.

NOVA - Origins- Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution

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Origins is a spectacular four-part miniseries, first presented on PBS's Nova, about the beginnings of the universe, our solar system, life on Earth, and the possibility of extraterrestrial life on other planets. It is not a stretch to say that Origins, among all television documentaries about the evolving cosmos, offers the most breathtaking dramatic visual representation of Earth's tumultuous history, and the clearest, step-by-step explanation of the formation of planets, the development of water and living organisms, and the forces that shape other parts of our galaxy and beyond.

Earth Is Born
How Life Began
Where Are The Aliens?
Back To The Beginning

By Sara-Olivia "Bookworm and cat lover"(Michigan) -

I really enjoyed this Nova series and think that Neil DeGrasse Tyson did a great job as host (fortunately, my local library has many fine Nova and other PBS productions). His engaging narration echoed the drama of what the early Earth must have gone through. We see simulations of constant meteroroic and asteroidal impacts and collisions on a then-toxic Mother Earth. He references Earth's evolution to a 24-hour period, with us humans coming along about 30 seconds before midnight. We ponder the evidence for non-Earth life within our own Milkyway and learn how spiffy instruments let us deduce the gravitational pull that only planets could have over their corresponding stars. If a star is wavering, then scientists will check that out as a sign of the star's gravitational interaction with an orbiting planet. With deductive skills that surpass Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes combined, these modern scientific detectives have culled for themselves a wealth of probable scenarios about how life first began (electrically charged meteorites and space debris introduced our planet to the building blocks of protein), how the moon was formed (gravity and colliding sperical bodies), how Earth's atmosphere went from toxic to biospheric (oxygen-producing bacteria morphed our planet's atmosphere from a noxious 1% oxygen component to a hospitable 21%), and how time plays the key role in accommodating and tracing the "origins" of life. The early Earth was violent, volatile, and fiery (with lava oceans and molten rock; molten metals made their way into the planet's core--this hot core has many implications, including life itself); a far cry, says one scientist, from a Garden of Eden. (Even the Garden of Eden would depend on the planet's initially harsh conditions that would eventually--4.3 billion or so years later--lead to lush vegetation and life as we know it.) The Earth is home to fantastic biodiversity, representing the unlimited imagination of God. I am in no way less impressed if God chose billions of years to bring about life as we know it than if God accomplished the task in less than a week. We're only splitting hairs to worry about time frames and "modus operandi" (to quote another reviewer) in terms of accommodating our belief systems. Personally, I believe that God took his time creating the necessary conditions for life to originate and evolve. I'm glad that this program examines "the long and winding road" version of creation.